


Auld Lang Syne

by Val_Creative



Category: His Dark Materials (TV), His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Genre: BAMF Lyra Belaqua, Canon - Book & TV Combination, Cultural Differences, Domestic Fluff, F/M, First Kiss, First Love, Friends to Lovers, Humor, Introspection, New Year's Eve, New Year's Kiss, Nostalgia, Public Display of Affection, Romance, Soft Will Parry, Will's World (His Dark Materials), Winter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:15:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28463682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Val_Creative/pseuds/Val_Creative
Summary: Lyra and Will spend their New Year's Eve together in Will's Oxford.
Relationships: Lyra Belacqua/Will Parry
Comments: 14
Kudos: 69





	Auld Lang Syne

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Not_So_Mundane_After_All_97](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Not_So_Mundane_After_All_97/gifts).



> Big shoutout to [Mundi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Not_So_Mundane_After_All_97/pseuds/Not_So_Mundane_After_All_97) for letting me wrangle her into this Christmas/NYE exchange we are doing. 
> 
> We decided to challenge each other to writing a New Years Eve kiss for LyraWill and this is what I did. I would LOVE to hear if you guys enjoyed this and any thoughts you had (I went heavy for Book!Lyra characterization and dropping plenty of book references--but it's still a mix of show and book like I always do) and please also check out **[Mundi's fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28463673)** while you are here since she's a fabulous writer and she also did a NYE kiss for LyraWill too! Please give it some love! ✨✨✨

*

This isn't Oxford — this isn't _Lyra's_ Oxford.

Jordan College doesn't _exist_.

It's enough to have frightened Lyra at the start.

She couldn't find the pearl-green cupola of Shelton Building, or the white-painted lantern of the Library, or the red jackalberries that grew secretly under the Lecture Theatre's windows. It was emptiness and heaps of dirt where it should all be standing.

There used to be Little Clarendon Street with the glamorous dress shops for wealthier and sophisticated little girls and elegant cafes… on the left, it met onto Walton Street where Lyra could see what remained of the Felt Press… Juxon, one of the streets with little terraced brick houses, ran into the canal with laborers and watermen settled there with their families, and the towering ridge of Eagle Ironworks behind it… and then, Port Meadow stretched as far as the hills and woods of White Ham…

Her and the gyptian children would race from every end of the wharves, teetering over cranes and derricks on the boatyard, leaping over the fence into a wide meadow leading into the old swing bridge over the green water. They scattered themselves into Jericho, St. Bernard and Walton, heading past the great square-towered oratory of St. Barnabas the Chymist.

It feels like a lifetime ago — Lyra, outrunning the boys, expertly climbing the sprawling oak trees and rooftops of Jordan, playing pretend and warring with Jordan College's kitchen orphans and St. Michael's youths and the town children who riled them up —

"Do you want anything to eat?"

Will's voice eases apart her memories, gentle as his heart. He's beside her on a pavement seeming slick with icy rainwater.

"… Thank you," Lyra murmurs, nodding her decision.

One of Will's hands encouragingly touches her shoulder, holding there, and she's noticed that Will keeps his right hand out of sight while in his Oxford. Too many questions if someone spotted it, she supposes. Will doesn't like unnecessary attention.

He leaves her for a moment, weaving around a man with a long tan coat, going to what appears to be a gigantic metal hut on wheels. Lyra remembers something similar in her version of London, but they had wooden awnings and served mostly coffee. She would put her arms up on the counters, occasionally getting yelled at and swatted. Will keeps his arms politely to himself.

She still gets confused by the lack of narrow cobbled streets, and how these aren't tramcars and they don't hum and spark under any anbaric wires. Will did explain the yellow lines and the little white patches, and why the lights turn red and green.

Lyra burrows her hands into her deep pockets.

It's much colder in Will's Oxford than hers. He insisted that she wear the thick-knitted, emerald jumper over her blouse, giving Lyra a pair of mittens. A hat and scarf. Pantalaimon, as a snow white ermine, curls to Lyra's neck to warm them. She fiddles with the old tweed coat hanging on her. All of the damp clinging on glimmers like a thousand tiny pearls in the bright lamplight.

The rucksack, under her coat, shelters Lyra's alethiometer — and she's never letting it be taken from her. Never again.

"Careful," Will says, returning. He hands Lyra a white Styrofoam cup. "It's hot."

Lyra frowns good-naturedly.

"I _know_ that," she declares out loud, taking a sip and promptly burning her tongue. Pantalaimon groans quietly under her red-and-black tartan scarf. Lyra forces down a wince, and makes herself sip the boiling hot, chocolat liquid again.

The corner of Will's mouth twitches up.

Lyra doesn't know what anbaric cables and bulbs — _electric_ , she reminds herself — these are, but the glow of them flashes a brilliant red against the edges of Will's face and in his hair. There's other aureate glows and a crisp, startling white light harsher than midwinter.

Will looks down, unwrapping a foil-covered egg sandwich and offering Lyra a bite. He has on his own scarf, as well as a dark, woolen jacket. Underneath it, Lyra knows Will has his knife inside the leather sheath backed in stiff horn. She knows about how the buckles stay the knife in place. Any movement could cut apart even the strongest steel or leather containing it, and even Will himself. He practised clumsily with unbuckling and buckling his knife, making the sheath-straps as tight as possible.

She nibbles on crumbles of melted, fluffy egg.

"It's good," Lyra tells him, wiping off her lips with a sleeve. Will softly snorts a laugh. "Your food is better. Cooked better."

"I'm sure the vendor appreciates that…"

"What's a vendor?" Lyra asks tonelessly, chewing another bite with an opened mouth.

"Hold on," Will says, smiling suddenly and reaching for her chin with his thumb. "You've got something on you…" She stiffens a little, mesmerised by the blunt heat of his skin. He doesn't appear to notice, pulling away and checking his phone messages.

Lyra slowly touches over her own chin, wiping it off and popping her mitten-thumb past her lips.

A girl looking older than Will, her light brown hair plaited, stares between Lyra and Will and nudges her giggling friend. They giggle more as Lyra scowls, exposing her teeth. Both of them wear pale blue-and-white stockings over their calves.

More people wander by.

Lyra finds herself still processing how many of them dress informally. Women in trousers rather than skirts, cotton and silk and a kind of blue rough material. A tall, lanky man in a colourful skirt over hose and big black boots. Another man with a silvery, curly beard, wearing a suit of red velvet and white trimmed fur lining his collar and sleeves.

None of them have daemons — well, Lyra supposes they _do_ , but their daemons are hidden away like Will's.

"Is it always like this, Will?"

"What do you mean?" Will mutters, gazing to Lyra's wistful expression.

"So many different people together… _happy_ …"

"I suppose. Everyone's celebrating New Year's Eve. As soon as it's January 1st at midnight, they celebrate the beginning of the new year. It's a tradition." Will gives her a deeply inquisitive look. "Do you not have that in your Oxford?"

Lyra grumbles to herself.

_Tradition._

According to the Master of the Jordan College, the first day of a new year was meant for holy prayer and reflection. They needed to cleanse themselves of their past sins, but Lyra suspects that the Magisterium itself required this. All of the Scholars and the Librarian and the Master, as well as everyone working and living in the College, sat down for the mid-night vigil.

Even if the Chapel was in disrepair, they attended. Lyra remembers once noticing the workers hauling up bright new stone, rolls of shiny lead and balks of timber, up onto scaffolding during the morning and then how they all vanished in the evening.

Before dusk, Lyra would be caught by the most agile Scholar, being escorted to Mrs. Lonsdale. She washed and tidied Lyra up, forcing Lyra into a somber and ivory-coloured gown along with the other children. Only children wore white. Mrs. Lonsdale, and the Master and the Scholars, and everyone, wore black. Lyra's hair would still be dripped wet as they marched through the shadowed quadrangle, leading past the Hall with its stained glass windows full of naphtha-glow. She would hear the bells ring.

They let her drink a mouthful of heady crimson liquor from a goblet, as well as the other children, and Lyra preferred that over the thin, tasteless wafer pressed against her tongue by a solemn-faced Father Heyst. No one dare cause mischief.

She was separated form Roger on purpose, knowing they would be disruptive otherwise.

Lyra hated it. She hated every second of it, pretending to care about The Authority, growing more and more _bored_ as the hour inched towards mid-night. She hated being freezing and wet in that stupid gown. She hated how her bottom fell asleep.

After explaining this, Will's face twists into a perplexed frown.

"That sounds… interesting."

"Not especially," Pan speaks up dully, lifting his snowy white ermine head from Lyra's scarf.

Will smiles uncertainly, and Lyra finds herself daydreaming a little about the shape and pinkness of Will's mouth. Was it like when he rubbed her chin? Would he feel hot on Lyra's skin like Will's fingertips had? Why was that so important to her?

"You're right. It's not very interesting."

*

It's getting late.

Lyra wanders off as more people mill about, needing to clear her head and ordering something warm to drink at another metal hut on wheels. Instead of a hot chocolat tasting like peppermint and coffee, Lyra gulps a warm apple-flavoured cider. The man selling it calls her _pretty_.

As a response, Lyra spits viciously on the icy road by the counter and walks off. He glares.

"You should have told Will where we were going…"

"Hush up, Pan. I dunno where we were going," she argues. Lyra feels Pantalaimon scratch irritably on her neck.

There's an odour of rich, sweet smokeleaf in the air. A group of older boys, in dark coats like Will, nudge into each other roughly and laugh at a joke. Lyra hurries by them, snatching the cigarillo from the boy's hand and hearing him curse.

She half-expects him to chase her. Nobody does.

Lyra ducks around a street corner, narrowly avoiding an elderly woman with a cane. "Sorry!" Lyra gasps, dropping her cider and hopping off the sidewalk. Pine-green wreathes with red ribbons hang above. Snow drifts down. Lyra slows into a walk across the street, inhaling a little of the smokeleaf and raggedly coughing out. It's so much nastier than the ones Hugh Lovat snuck her.

_"Lyra!"_

Her head whips round. She instinctively stomps out the paper-white cigarillo, grinning.

"Will!"

He rushes over, nearly slipping on the ice-slick ground. "Lyra!" Will pants, holding onto her upper shoulders but not shaking her as Lyra thought he might. His face pinched. "Where were you?" he demands. "Where did you go—Lyra, I was looking _all over_ —"

Lyra examines him, her grin faltering. "You're upset."

"Of course I'm upset," Will says breathlessly, staring into Lyra's astonished eyes. Their noses millimetres apart. He sounds less indignant now. "I don't—I don't want to lose you. I don't want that." Lyra feels her stomach grow heavy at the thought of Will being alone, frantic and grieving. How much it would hurt him. "So please—please don't do that again. You had me worried."

She nods. Lyra's mouth flattens into a stern line.

"I promise, Will."

He nods with her after a long, silent moment. Will's hands lower.

*

It's a bit more walking, and there's more people than ever.

The department store Lyra faces… it's like the cinema Will took her to, but smaller. Smaller movies playing from boxes. Lyra gawks, enthralled, watching the television broadcasts of places around the world celebrating on their mid-night.

"I've never seen anything like this, Will" she breathes. "Why does everyone kiss on _the New Year's Eve?"_

"They count down to when it strikes midnight, and then you are supposed to kiss someone you love," Will says quietly. All of the small screens begin counting down, including the people on it yelling excitedly. "Mum would kiss my cheek every year. We ordered Burger King through Cliffex last time and she let me try her wine." He shrugs. "It was alright."

Lyra makes a thoughtful noise. Pantalaimon crawls down under her sleeve, turning into a beetle, escaping into her pocket.

People around them, young and old, count down with their not-tramcars' radios and their phones like Will's. Lyra doesn't know if she will really ever understand this Oxford, and what makes it so special, but she does know _what to do_ while here.

The counting stops.

Fireworks bang thunderously in the distance.

Everyone else applauds and shouts joyfully, hugging. Will does nothing but look pensively at one of the screens.

Lyra concentrates, going up on her tiptoes, aiming to press her lips quickly to Will's cheek. Will turns his head towards her, oblivious, whispering Lyra's name — and it's the _wrong_ moment, or the right one, but Lyra can feel Will's upper lip scrape hers.

They jolt away, wide-eyed. Still so close.

Under the lamplight, the snowfall glows and spills into their hair and clothes like flecks of golden dust. Everything seems to be vibrating around Lyra… maybe the air itself has begun to stir to life. Clouds of frost hover from their lips. Her entire face reddens.

"Lyra…" Will's voice strains a little.

She knows what this is _marvelous_ and _exhilarating_ and _so very important_. Will needs to understand this, too. Lyra cups the side of Will's face, leaning in, touching her closed lips to his. Will's mouth feels like how she imagined: a deep, soft burn. He remains at a standstill until Will presses back to her mouth, relocking their lips, inhaling shakily. Lyra's pulse flutters.

One of his arms encircles her. Will's heavily bandaged hand crawls up the back of Lyra's snow-flecked coat.

They meet eyes.

"Is it always like this, Will?"

"Dunno…" Will exhales, smiling shyly and a little cross-eyed when Lyra's lips hover over his. "Hope so…"

She hopes so, too.

*


End file.
